Wish Upon a Star (28 page)

Just as she was framing a question, the little bell over the door sang out and Toby moved toward the front, lighting the center row of books. ‘Hello,’ he called out.

Claire heard a woman’s voice answer, but both Toby and his possible client were too far away for her to see or overhear them unless she got up. Though she was curious, she sat quite still and waited. She had been shy about coming back so soon, afraid it might be too forward. She was equally afraid Toby might not remember her but he greeted her by name and had immediately invited her to sit down. Once again, she was having a very good time talking with him but reminded herself that she mustn’t wear out her welcome, even if she didn’t get to ask him anything about an apartment or a job.

She sat for a while uncertain about what to do, listening to the murmuring. Just as she decided it was time to go, Toby’s voice was raised a bit as he said goodbye and the doorbell tinkled again. He was back, George padding beside him the way a dog might. Good. Perhaps she would get to ask him now, before another interruption.

Toby dropped his long frame into his chair. ‘I sold a book,’ he said. ‘And I’m absolutely exhausted. I shall have to rest up. And perhaps eat a biscuit. For medicinal purposes only, of course.’ He reached to a lower shelf on the stand beside his chair and took out a brightly-colored metal container. He popped off the top and offered the contents to Claire. There was a jumble of cookies inside, obviously not the ones that had originally come in the tin. Claire selected a chocolate one and Toby put the tin on his lap, eating one cookie after another.

‘God, I am such a good businessman. I think I made sixty pee on that sale. Now, if we don’t eat more than sixty pee in biscuits I’ve made a profit.’ He looked down at the open container and picked up another. ‘Not much chance of that though.’ He smiled and passed her the canister again. Though she knew he was joking, Claire shook her head.

‘So where were we? You don’t want to go back to the paperwork gulag, or serve thirty-four years there the way poor Charlie did. I can certainly understand. I once actually worked for a living. I was an up-and-coming executive in an advertising agency. Couldn’t bear it. Thought I would die. Then my uncle died and left me this shambles. I looked upon it as a sign.’

‘Is that how you got into the book business?’

‘Yes, and into the flat above as well. I don’t make any money, but who knows? There might be a sudden run on Hugh Walpole. I must have almost a hundred of his books, poor sod.’

‘So you live upstairs?’ Claire asked. When he nodded she tried to be bold. ‘I can’t keep living where I am,’ almost burst out of her. ‘Do you know how I might find a very cheap apartment—flat—to share?’

‘Well, you could end up going to Croydon for that,’ he said and popped another biscuit into his mouth.

‘What part of London is Croydon?’

‘That’s the rub, my dear. It’s not in London at all. It’s a dreadful place and no one wants to live there, except perhaps the good people of Croydon. No, you want something central.’ He paused again, looking up at the ceiling. Was he thinking about room overhead? ‘But I shall have to think,’ was all he said. He bit into another cookie and was silent, but only for a moment. ‘Hang on! Have you looked at the
Evening Standard
?’

‘What’s that?’ Claire asked, then remembered the pile of papers on Mrs. Patel’s counter.

‘The daily London tabloid. Comes out in several editions starting at lunchtime. I think it has a whole section of flats to share, though you wouldn’t know what you were getting into. Meanwhile, I’ll ask among my friends. Perhaps one of them knows about something.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and meant it. Silly of her to hope for another offer. It was very nice just to have him take any interest in her.

‘All right, now. What are your plans for the day?’

‘I thought I would walk through Hyde Park and then go to the Victoria and Albert Museum.’

‘Oh, my dear. Forget the V & A,’ he said. ‘Dismal basement café. You won’t want to take your lunch there.’ He popped another cookie into his mouth and Claire had to wonder how he stayed so thin.

‘Oh, I have my lunch with me. I’ll just have tea out later.’

‘But where will you have tea? My bit in your education is to make sure you go to the right hotels.’

Claire thought about the checkmarks Abigail had made next to Claridge’s and Brown’s. ‘I’d like to,’ she said. ‘My budget is a little…tight, but how much could tea cost?’

‘Depends on whether it’s a cup of tea, a pot of tea, a cream tea, afternoon tea, or high tea. We’re like the Eskimos,’ he explained further, ‘you know, thirty words for snow.’

Claire had to smile. It was true that tea in London was as ubiquitous as snow must be above the Arctic Circle. Of course people who descended from Shakespeare would have distinctions. But what were they? Before she had to ask, voluble Toby continued: ‘A
cup
of tea is just that. You get it in cheaper restaurants. All the better places give you
a pot
of tea, which doesn’t cost them anything extra but costs you.
Afternoon tea
means it’s accompanied by finger sandwiches—you know—those slivers of bread with the crusts cut off. A
cream tea
includes that as well as scones and Devonshire clotted cream, which you put on the scones along with strawberry preserves. No matter what they serve, insist on strawberry by the way.’

Claire’s head was spinning but she laughed aloud. ‘And is
high tea
even fancier than that? What do they throw in? A pizza?’

Toby plucked another biscuit from the tin in his lap and then smiled up at her. ‘This is where the British fool you,’ he said. ‘
High tea
is actually a meal that could include a sweet and a savory course. In the North it’s a lower class thing—
tea
means dinner. You might call it “supper”.’

‘I see,’ she said, though she wasn’t absolutely sure she did.

Toby closed the tin of biscuits, put it back, and brushed the crumbs from his lap. ‘It used to be eaten by people who are NOKD.’ He grinned again. Before she could ask, he told her, ‘That means Not Our Kind Dear. It was coined by Nancy Mitford. Know her?’

Claire shook her head and for the first time had doubts about Toby. Did he think she was grand, did he just assume all Americans were rich, or was there something about her that made him think that?

‘Oh my dear! How lucky you are! All the pleasure of learning about the Mitford girls in front of you!’ He leaned forward. ‘She was from an aristocratic but what you in the States might call an extremely dysfunctional family. Nancy was a writer, her sister Deborah married a Duke, Jessica became a left-leaning journalist, and Diana married the head of the British Fascist party. Unity had an obsession with Hitler, and when Britain went to war with Germany she shot herself in the head.’ Claire’s own head was spinning again but she was fascinated. ‘I think it was Nancy who said “Unity didn’t succeed at suicide because she missed her teensy, tinsy brain.”’ Toby’s eyes lit up. ‘Have you never read
Hons and Rebels
?’ Claire shook her head. ‘Good heavens, my dear, every girl should read it at thirteen.’ He was off like a rabbit, and his cat streaked behind him as if, indeed, he was one. He was back in a moment, a small green book in his hand. ‘Forget medieval art for a few moments. You must have this,’ he said. ‘You will enjoy it.’

She took the little green book. She wasn’t sure he was right but she certainly wasn’t going to say no. Timidly, she opened the cover and saw that it was only three-pounds-fifty. She could afford it, just, but before she could say so Toby spoke up. ‘I’ll knock it down to two pounds. You can’t ask for more—less, actually—than that. And you’ll never regret it, my girl.’

He had used a completely different accent, and while she wasn’t sure what kind, she realized she was beginning to notice distinctions in speech. He was imitating somebody, or perhaps a whole class of somebodies, and they were probably NOKD. Maybe, she guessed, the British equivalent of Anthony and his Staten Island pals.

Claire reached into her purse and fished around for a two-pound coin. She handed it over and Toby nodded in thanks. ‘Two books sold today. I’m flush. So, back to tea. You know people argue about whether to put the milk in first.’

‘No. Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. The pre-lactarians say it is to make sure that the hot tea alone doesn’t crack good porcelain.’

Claire thought of the milky mug of tea that was put in front of her every morning. It could be dropped without showing a crack. ‘But how do you know how much milk you need if you don’t know how strong the tea is?’

‘Do an approximation,’ Toby told her. ‘Now, you must have tea at Claridge’s just to see the place. It’s on Brook Street between Hanover and Grosvenor Squares. Heaven. And the Connaught, that’s just below Grosvenor Square on Mount Street. And Brown’s in Albemarle Street. It’s a classic.’

‘I’m not sure I can afford to…’

‘A-ha, that’s the trick. You see, if you go in at four o’clock they’ll be serving a full tea and it will set you back twenty or twenty-five pounds.’

Claire tried not to gasp.

‘Well worth the experience, my dear, if you have the money, but if you don’t, then you simply show up at two-thirty or three. You ask, “Is afternoon tea being served yet?” and of course they’ll tell you no because it doesn’t begin until about four. And lunch service would be over as well. So you just say “Well, will somebody bring me a cup of tea?” and of course they will. And then you get to sit in a lovely room and have linen napkins and breathtaking surroundings and enjoy all of it while it only sets you back two or three pounds.’

Two or three pounds seemed like a lot of money, but she could see what Toby was getting at; it was sort of like collecting an experience rather than consuming.

‘You might also try the Lanesborough, though it’s awfully overdone. It’s in Knightsbridge. And while you’re there, the Berkeley is absolutely perfect and the Hyde Park Hotel is a grand old Victorian pile. The trick is you get out before they begin serving a proper tea.’

The mention of the Berkeley gave her a small stab in the heart but she ignored it. ‘How did you figure this out?’ Claire asked.

Toby smiled, raised a brow and sighed theatrically. ‘Aah. I was not always as you see me now. I live in reduced circumstances, but now and then one just must get in touch with one’s inner posh.’

‘Posh? Like the Spice Girl?’

He nodded. ‘But before Sporty and the rest we—well, our more humble grandparents—used the term for what you might call “classy”, though I could never believe that anyone who used that word could be classy.’ Claire giggled. Jerry used to call her mother ‘a classy lady’ all the time. ‘Anyway, it comes from wealthy people sailing to India. One wanted to be on the port side going and the starboard side returning to avoid the heat of the sun. Port Out Starboard Home. Hence “Posh”.’

Claire thought she could listen to Toby all day. But she knew she mustn’t impose. Reluctantly she stood up. ‘Thank you so much for the recommendation,’ she said holding up the Mitford book. ‘I’ll read it, get the
Standard
, try tea, and report back.’

‘Good girl,’ he said smiling at her warmly. ‘You look tremendously presentable. Just tell yourself you belong in those places. And after you get your legs, I’ll take you to the Ritz. But perhaps not for tea. We could have a drink.’

Claire was charmed. Toby had asked her out! She didn’t know when, and she didn’t know if he would actually ever get around to it, but she was thrilled. ‘I’d love that,’ she said. She tried to keep the wild enthusiasm out of her voice.

‘Well, good luck and good flat hunting. Rubbishy paper, really, the
Standard
but it’s a start.’

She nodded, thanked him and walked out of the bookshop with a new book under her arm and a lightness in her step.

Claire spent the remainder of her day before work strolling up and down the streets in the hope that, by a happy coincidence, she would see a flat for rent. After seeing Toby, Claire was hopeful that something could be found in the papers. Now she just needed to find a
Standard
—as Toby had referred to it—left at Mrs. Patel’s shop by the time Claire got there.

It was hard to be alone—or lonely for that matter—at Mrs. Patel’s. After only a little less than a week Claire had become familiar with the shop regime. She’d almost finished dusting and rearranging all the stock and had begun a list of items that customers requested. Because she arrived a little bit earlier each night she was now able to cover the store while Mrs. Patel ate dinner with her children. It also helped that the shop was quiet since Claire wasn’t trusted enough to take the money, but she did sit at the counter, help customers and call Mrs. Patel only when it was time to ring up sales.

She had a tidy mind and, to her great satisfaction, you no longer found Fairy liquid next to Heinz Baked Beans. Occasionally, Mrs. Patel grumbled—‘I can find nothing.’ But sales seemed to have increased and so, when asked, she would fan her hand and say, ‘Move it! Move it as you like.’

Claire was also beginning to know the regular shoppers, though not always by name. There was Mrs. Caudrey, an elderly woman who always wore a dusty raincoat and bought a sliced loaf, a pint of milk and dozens of tins of cat food. There was fat Mr. Robinson, with a once-rakish mustache who each evening bought enough sweets and ice cream for an entire kindergarten. There were a few younger people who seemed to dash in almost every night for milk or juice or bread. Claire would have liked to speak with them, but they seemed busy and distracted. Unlike her, they had lives and homes waiting for them. Then there was Maudie, the woman from Mrs. Watson’s, who dropped by two or even three times an evening with her two fractious little boys. ‘Watch her, I think she steals,’ Mrs. Patel said.

‘No!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘Have you seen her?’

Mrs. Patel shook her head. ‘Why else would she come in so often? She doesn’t have any money. If she could she’d buy milk on hire-purchase.’

But Claire knew why. Maudie had nowhere else to go except the grim room at Mrs. Watson’s. Dealing with the children, their noise, as well as Mrs. Watson’s disapproval must be murder. Far better to be out and about, as Claire herself had already discovered. Maudie might not be the most reputable of women—she had told Claire that her boys were only half-brothers, though both looked exactly like little Maudies, and that she’d been abandoned by both fathers—but she was no thief.